Climate Aridity and the Geographical Shift of Olive Trees in a Mediterranean Northern Region

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F86652079%3A_____%2F21%3A00542917" target="_blank" >RIV/86652079:_____/21:00542917 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/9/4/64" target="_blank" >https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1154/9/4/64</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cli9040064" target="_blank" >10.3390/cli9040064</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Climate Aridity and the Geographical Shift of Olive Trees in a Mediterranean Northern Region

Original language description

Climate change leverages landscape transformations and exerts variable pressure on natural environments and rural systems. Earlier studies outlined how Mediterranean Europe has become a global hotspot of climate warming and land use change. The present work assumes the olive tree, a typical Mediterranean crop, as a candidate bioclimatic indicator, delineating the latent impact of climate aridity on traditional cropping systems at the northern range of the biogeographical distribution of the olive tree. Since the olive tree follows a well-defined latitude gradient with a progressive decline in both frequency and density moving toward the north, we considered Italy as an appropriate case to investigate how climate change may (directly or indirectly) influence the spatial distribution of this crop. By adopting an exploratory approach grounded in the quali-quantitative analysis of official statistics, the present study investigates long-term changes over time in the spatial distribution of the olive tree surface area in Northern Italy, a region traditionally considered outside the ecological range of the species because of unsuitable climate conditions. Olive tree cultivated areas increased in Northern Italy, especially in flat districts and upland areas, while they decreased in Central and Southern Italy under optimal climate conditions, mostly because of land abandonment. The most intense expansion of the olive tree surface area in Italy was observed in the northern region between 1992 and 2000 and corresponded with the intensification of winter droughts during the late 1980s and the early 1990s and local warming since the mid-1980s. Assuming the intrinsic role of farmers in the expansion of the olive tree into the suboptimal land of Northern Italy, the empirical results of our study suggest how climate aridity and local warming may underlie the shift toward the north in the geographical range of the olive tree in the Mediterranean Basin. We finally discussed the implications of the olive range shift as a part of a possible landscape scenario for a more arid future.

Czech name

—

Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10612 - Mycology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Climate

ISSN

2225-1154

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

9

Issue of the periodical within the volume

4

Country of publishing house

CH - SWITZERLAND

Number of pages

17

Pages from-to

64

UT code for WoS article

000642930200001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85104951897